Images of engaging management

This report is part of The Engaging Manager Series, which follows up IES report 470, The Engaging Manager. Each short report in the Engaging Manager series explores different aspects of engaging management.

This report explores perceptions of engaging managers, drawing on the contributions from their engaged teams. We asked team members to create a representation of their manager: this could be by drawing their manager (for example as an object or an animal), creating a metaphor, or using descriptive words or phrases to represent their manager. The teams discussed the reasons behind their representations of their engaging managers, which often led to new insights and observations.

This report presents a collection of the thought-provoking words, metaphors and pictures produced, analyses the main themes arising from them, and discusses how they guide our knowledge of the behaviours of engaging managers.